American Democracy = our freedom and our rights, right? Just as a hotdog is still a hotdog even if it has mustard on it. (That might just be a bad example or possibly a really good one?) I think the way we go about achieving American democracy will, however, change... eventually as everything does. Just as soil washes away to reveal a Gem in the ground. Chances are if you can read this you have already been apart of some of the changes in American Democracy...
BT (Before Technology) one might tune into the weekly newspaper or talk about politics at the bar. What a fun way to learn about your candidates, huh? Or as my little brother would say, through morse code. (Not fact-checked) Because of the BT struggles there wasn't a fast and effective way for the candidates to know what you, the public were really thinking about them. Now they have predictions based off of data collected by smartphones and computers, we will call that PT (Post Technology)
Before the 2016 election, potential candidates were still roughly in the dark about what the public was thinking about the elections. As the 2016 election proved, we are not in a private relationship with our technology. The world went into an outrage when people found out Facebook had and continues to collect data and that said data was used in interfering with the 2016 election. Due to data breaches, Cambridge was able to collect data from over 50 million Facebook users. Yikes.
Then things get a bit more confusing when a hotdog is no longer a hotdog, or when American Democracy is no longer an American Democracy. I think it becomes a bit more confusing when things start to sway or changes occur due to the situation of the world. No need to worry at this current moment, 4:21 PM April 4th, 2020 we still have an American Democracy but, things could be different at 4:22 PM April 4th, 2020. But what I am talking about when I say situations in the world?
After 9/11 the privacy of Americans had a huge shift, technology is now progressing to affect things like election and our democracy. If we step back from our hotdog and look at the interference from social media we may not be as free as we think.
The threat of changing our label from American Democracy is not one to worry about, by keeping the label people can still cling onto the idea of being free. Perhaps if issues like the #Deletefacebook continue to happen I do think a change can occur but that will be far in the future, people would have to speak out and use social media in a truthful light.
I have never really shown my true actual self on social media... which, yes, I know isn't really helping fix the problem of our generation; false reality. Ever since I was little (and I'm sure y'all could relate) I have always kind of had a fear about what could happen to society due to a lack of privacy on social media. My generation, that is generation Y or otherwise known as Mellennials, we fit into an interesting category because half of us grew up with social media. This means we also grew up with having to attend multiple school assemblies where we sat through hour-long lectures where they talked about the dangers of social media and what could possibly happen if you post that underage drinking picture... No job for you. We still see this today, one of my professors took time out of lecture to tell us that it would be smart to put a camera blocker on our computers. It's not like we are oblivious to the monsters hiding behind the screen yet we still let them watch.
Twitter has become a pretty political platform ever since President Trump began using it. With that being said I have seen so many tweets surfacing that are related to Trump, some even saying things like "You only like Trump because twitter told you to." The combination of not being 100% you on social media, idealizing over influencers and thinking we are in a free democracy has made a perfect recipe for a false and controlled reality.
All social media users are considered successful when something becomes shareable and trendy, whether that be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even a blog post. If your post is shareable then apparently you are doing social media right. Although the most harm a shareable tweet about your ex-boyfriend might do is lead to an upset phone call. Because of the data collection that is social media, once you like or share something you will then see more content like that. So what does that mean for social media and the hopeless American elections? It means a lot!
Despite our President trying to be hopelessly trendy, social media affects us, the government and elections more than one might think. This is due to the algorithm and the constant data intake from our technology.
Here's how... Say you go on a site to look at a blog that is republican leaning, you will scroll down to see ads that are for a similar republican leaning post, soon you will find yourself in an endless pit of republican leaning content. But that's not the end, you cant just X out anymore... Now that you looked up that blog on google you will soon see ads on Facebook for the republican candidates until that is the only side of politics you see! You might get that occasional headline with the word democrat in it but wait... the content won't be positive.
Aside from gathering data to possibly predict the outcome of the elections based on data from our phones, we are also being persuaded by what we might think the majority of the world believes, all because of an algorithm. Your freedom of Democracy is being stripped away because of the devices that we have been tricked into believing allows freedom. It's not up to us anymore it's up to our algorithm and who paid the most for there ad.
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